Tag Archives: christmas

We are fans of architecture. Even more so we are fans of “architectural design.” However, kitsch and the aesthetics of the contemporary commercial Xmas holiday experience, we are not fans of. But we were intrigued by a recent contest at our office to design and build a holiday-style gingerbread house.

The construction and decorative materials were provided to participants (some would be architects, and some legit designers and artists) and included a large gingerbread cookie (of course) in the shape of a pre-fab parts template for the basic house structure, and baggies filled with jellybeans, licorice, gumdrops, pretzels, cookies, marshmellows, candy canes and myriad other sweets of dubious tastes, poor nutritional value and enough sugar to sustain a full-time local dental practice.Continue reading →

Auteur film director Wes Anderson has produced an amusing short Christmas film (see below) as long-form commercial for the global Swedish clothing retailer H&M. It’s called “Come Together” and stars Adrien Brody as the conductor of a train carrying passengers through a winter holiday storm. The four-minute film is an exercise in branded content for H&M. Aside from a logo “bug,” branding itself and commercial messaging has been kept to a minimum at the end of the video. “Come Together” is quintessential Anderson in terms of style, editing, production design and cinematography, and it is as visually charming as anything we’ve seen from the director. Anderson has directed commercials for other brands in the past and you can see some of them online at AdWeek.

Merry Christmas! Happy holidays! We’re in NYC this Christmas day and although we don’t usually get caught up in the holiday traditions — it’s just not our thing — it’s nice to see a Christmas tree as we sip a hot Blue Bottle cappuccino on this very cold Christmas afternoon in New York’s Lower East Side. It’s also really nice to see the downtown streets so quiet, as most businesses are closed, except for this recent cafe addition to the LES espresso coffee scene called Whynot on Orchard Street.